Friday, July 1, 2011

Birds and Rabbits...

I battled rabbits nibbling my spinach, beans and broccoli when the garden was first planted, and then they ate my broccoli a second time before I got smart and put netting up over the whole shebang. Now things are big and lush and I took the netting off because I figured the garden could survive a little nibbling at it's current size. The first night I removed the cover, my spinach plants disappeared. I wasn't all that suprised. The plants were small and it had already gotten too hot to expect much to come of the spinach plants. I'll just plant more in a few weeks for a fall crop.

This morning I stepped out to water my plants and everything looked fine until I got to my yellow bush beans. There was a hole in the middle of the spot where they were planted. Several of the plants looked like they were just ripped out. I saw a tuft of hair in the bottom of the hole and discovered some rabbits had decided to build a nest right in the middle of my beans. Luckily what looked like a baby rabbit was just a ball of hair so there wasn't any damage except for the few plants that got ripped out. Hopefully the plants around it will be okay, but I have more beans in my other beds anyhow. Now I just need to find a way to keep the bunnies out, and I prefer not to cover my beds up again, it makes it a little hard to water and we're getting closer to harvest time so I don't want to uncover every time I need to pick the beans or peppers. I don't want to hurt the rabbits, I just don't want them in my garden!

As for the birds... My blueberry plants have been doing great. The fruit is bulging and has turned a pinkish color, on it's way to purple and then blue. A few of the berries on my Toro variety bush actually looked like they were only a few days away from being blue! I was so excited to taste the first berries. Well, the birds got the first taste instead of me. They only took the ones on the verge of being doing, so there are still plenty left for me. I didn't want to take any chances with my precious berries though, so I was quick to cover them with some netting. Looks like I'll have a handful of berries any day now!